


Eight Days

by pipisafoat



Series: Stark Hospital for Independent Emotional Life Determination [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Psychiatric Hospital, Deaf Character, Deaf Clint Barton, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Psychologists & Psychiatrists, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 08:07:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8971249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipisafoat/pseuds/pipisafoat
Summary: It’s a week, and it could become eight days if he can just resist one more day. He’s made it a week before at home but never longer.
He can make it eight days, but not alone.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Content notes at the end; please be mindful.

Clint Barton hates visitation nights like he hates himself. He literally spat on Phil the first time the nurse had to audacity to mention the very existence of visitation, to suggest Clint might want to invite someone to the hospital. Like it was going out to see a movie or have a coffee, though Clint isn’t exactly fond of those activities either.

Still, he spat on Phil. On his face, to be precise. The man was a rock of some sort, though, just pulling a handkerchief - an honest to God handkerchief - out of his pocket, wiping his face in a single smooth motion, neatly folding and tucking the handkerchief back into his pocket, and smiling. Clint remembers Phil’s response word for word even now, a week later.

“It’s nice to know at least one friendly face will stay on the unit with me.”

Clint isn’t a friendly face, not to anybody. This is the fifth visitation night he’s been subjected to and the fifth visitation night he’s ignoring with all the force he can muster. He slams himself into the single chair allotted to his room and glares at the door as it swings shut slowly on its hydraulic hinge. Damn the inability to slam a door!

The unit is mercifully silent as he yanks the hearing aids from his pocket and considers yet again how satisfying it would be to drop them on the floor and stomp on them, again and again and again until all that remained were shards that not even Tony Fucking Stark could fix.

He doesn’t bother, though. There’s a spare set in his cubby and a signed agreement, after the first two aid destructions, that any hearing aids he slaughters are replaced, and he’s far past the point where his insurance is going to pay for them again. More than that, though, Phil knows sign language and somehow manages to make the signs full of more disappointment than anybody should be physically capable of. Clint doesn’t feel like the energy that interaction would require. He feels like destroying, hurting, killing, dying, but he can’t fathom a conversation with mouths or hands.

He throws the aids, though, as a compromise with himself. They bounce off the wall and land unharmed on his bed, and it’s suddenly not enough. They mock him. Little pieces of plastic and electronics that force him to stay a part of the world whether he wants to or not, and oh, he never wants to. He hates the world almost as much as he hates himself. He opens his mouth and exhales as forcefully as he can, screaming without sound. He shoves himself off the chair and onto his knees, screams again and again. It’s not enough, either. It hurts his face to open his mouth that far, but it doesn’t help. If he could slice at his cheeks like the Joker, open his mouth even more, maybe it could let out all the hate and leave him a functioning human being or an empty shell - he doesn’t care at all which it is.

But he’s hit on an idea. Let out the hate. Find a way for it to seep from his body. He noticed last night that the doorjamb was loose; there’s something there for him, he knows it. He jerks onto his feet and flings himself at the door, ripping it open and letting the hydraulic hinges keep it from smashing into the wall opposite and giving him away to the staff. He’s right - one of the screws is just loose enough for him to use an uncut fingernail to undo it until he can twist it with his fingertips, until it falls out of the doorframe and into his hand like a gift from heaven. 

“Down the road, not across the street.” He knows how to kill himself, but he promised Phil he wouldn’t attempt suicide in the hospital, not to mention a screw less than an inch in length would take far too long; he’d be discovered and stopped before he could accomplish anything. Instead, he’ll just bleed himself a little bit. Somewhere that isn’t obvious, not his arms, not even mingled in with the scars and still-healing cuts from before the hospital. His shirt rides up when he stretches, so his stomach is out. He considers his legs, but for some reason he’s stuck on another place. The idea is lodged so deeply in his brain that he can only assume it’s because it’ll help this time, it’ll finally be right and help and let him function for just a few more minutes, just a few more minutes, just a few more minutes for each cut.

Clint closes the door to his room, holding the screw like a priceless treasure in one cupped hand. He walks into his bathroom and pulls the shower curtain that doubles as a door across the opening. He tugs the right side of his pants under his hip and feels a rush of relief almost as good as the actual cut will be as soon as he sees the smooth expanse of skin near his groin, just above and beside his pubic hair.

He freezes with the screw point millimeters from his skin. He’s been so good in here that he stops in the thin line between intent and act. It’s been a week exactly since he last cut, minutes before walking into the hospital to admit himself. Sure, he hasn’t cut in the hospital much more because he didn’t have the means than because of any improvement in his condition, but it’s still an entire week with no new slices missing from his skin like they are from his soul. It’s a week, and it could become eight days if he can just resist one more day. He’s made it a week before at home but never longer.

He can make it eight days, but not alone.

Clint yanks his pants back up to where they belong and clenches the screw tightly in his hand. It pokes his palm just enough to make him want, want, _need_ to cut, but he is damn well going to break his record when he’s this close to it. Eight days without cutting himself. Eight days. He thinks he’s chanting it quietly as he runs from the bathroom, but he isn’t sure. It could just be a thought echoing in his head on an infinite loop as he jerks the door to his room open and bolts from his room toward the nursing station a million miles ahead.

Phil looks surprised when Clint slams bodily into the counter in front of his computer. The older man says something, looks somehow calm and upset at the same time when Clint gestures sort of wildly and aimlessly at his ears. _Eight days?_ he signs, and Clint nods frantically even as he tells his mouth to stop talking.

He shoves his still clenched fist in front of Phil. It’s shaking, and as he looks at it, it shakes more. Phil’s hand closes around Clint’s fist, not prying it open, not holding it shut, just steadying it, steadying Clint. Their eyes meet even as Clint’s desperate gasps for air start to calm down. One eyebrow raises on Phil’s face.

“Eight days,” he says, on purpose this time. “I want … I can’t … You have to help me.”

Phil squeezes Clint’s fist gently before withdrawing his hand to respond. _Help you with what? Eight days of what?_

“I need….” Clint feels tears pricking at his eyes. “Please. You have to.”

_Everyone else is gone. Do you want to talk here or in your room?_

Clint shrugs and thrusts his fist at Phil again. “Take it.”

Phil gently turns Clint’s fist to point up and helps him uncurl cramping fingers, letting them spasm back into a clenched position as soon as the first glimpse of the metal screw has a chance to meet Phil’s gaze. Nothing shows on the nurse’s face as he rubs a thumb gently over Clint’s fingers and pulls back again. _You can do it,_ he signs, then he comes around the counter to stand beside Clint. _I believe in you._

Somehow, that’s when something snaps in Clint. In a rush, the need to cut flies out of him, straight out of his eyeballs in the form of drops of water. The need spills over his cheeks and splashes down onto his shirt, staining little spots of darker gray where it lands. His knees buckle, and Phil catches him under the arms inches from kneecaps cracking against hard tile flooring, lowering him more slowly instead. Clint doesn’t know what to do, how to react, how to feel, so he drops his head onto Phil’s collarbone and just keeps crying. After a minute, Phil shifts from an awkward half-squat to sitting on the floor. Clint moves with him, never letting his head lose contact with the only solid and unchanging thing he can find. Phil’s hand slides onto his back, and the rubbing lets another wave of emotion leak out of Clint’s eyes, this time staining Phil’s shirt a darker red.

He doesn’t move his head. His eyes are squeezed tightly shut and jammed directly into Phil’s collarbone, and his hearing aids are still on his bed, so as long as he doesn’t move, there’s no direct communication. He holds his shaking fist up between them, satisfied when Phil brings a hand up gently underneath. Clint’s whole body shudders before he can finally let his hand let go of its cargo.

The screw drops into Phil’s hand, and Clint snatches his arm back immediately. The hand rubbing his back hesitates minutely, squeezes his shoulder, settles back into the same rhythm. Phil’s body shifts in a way Clint decides is the older man reaching above them to set the screw on the counter. 

He doesn’t know how long they sit there on the floor. He stubbornly ignores the vibrations of the other patients returning from visitation, even when the heavy footsteps of Happy Hogan, the nighttime nurse whose shift overlapped with Phil’s today to cover visitation, stop in front of them for a minute while Phil’s body vibrates with speech. He forces himself not to try to decipher Phil’s words as they rattle his bones, forces himself not to imagine what they’re saying, what the other patients are thinking as he sits on the floor curled up against the best nurse he’s ever met, crying even after his tear reservoir runs dry.

Clint finally pries his eyes open when Phil taps on his knee. _Your room?_ the older man signs before standing and putting a hand in Clint’s face. He nods and lets Phil haul him to his feet but doesn’t let go of that hand as they walk down the hall. Phil moves Clint’s hearing aids to his nightstand and turns down the covers without comment, handing him his pajamas. _Get changed. I’ll wait._

Clint rushes through his nighttime routine, anxious to get out of the bathroom and back to Phil. He feels like his hands are tripping over each other as he tries to talk to Phil. _I’m sorry_ and _Thank you_ and _I don’t understand_ and _Eight days_ all fly from his fingertips over and over until Phil catches the words, catches his fingers in a warm, steady grip.

_Go to sleep, Clint. I’ll be back in the morning._

**Author's Note:**

>  **Content notes:** Fairly explicit depiction of self-harm behavior but, more importantly, graphic depiction of the thought process leading to self-harm.


End file.
